The End
by crystalix
Summary: Sometimes the truth is so devastating that no one can put it to words. Final scene of season 2. One Shot.


Title: The End

Author: crystalix

Rating: PG

Summary: Sometimes the truth is so devastating that no one can put it to words. Part 1/1.

Pairing: Buffy/Angel

Timeline: Takes place at the end of the ATS season 2 episode "There's No Place Like Plrtz Glrb"

Disclaimer: All characters belong to Joss Whedon and co.

Distribution: Please ask first!

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The End

"Yo, that portal jumping is a fun ride. We sell it to a theme park we could get paid!" Gunn said enthusiastically, trudging up the front steps of Angel Investigations.

Angel couldn't help but smile,

"Okay. Can I say it? I wanna say it…"

"Say what?"

Angel laughed, cutting through his friends and up the remaining steps. It had been a long few days, the whole experience of Lorne's homeworld was so outrageous that no one could stifle a laugh. Angel felt a rush of energy, happiness overwhelming him at the sight of his home. It's funny, how after so many decades of being alone and with no real place to live, he had grown unmistakably attached to the quaint establishment. He hadn't realised just how much…

"There's no place like…." He announced with a smile, spreading open the double doors before him.

Before he could finish his sentence, an unexpected visitor forced him to freeze. His friends piling in the door behind him, Wesley and Cordelia's brows furrowed at the familiar redhead seated at the couch. Her head down, she slowly looked up at the sound of Angel's merry voice. Inwardly her heart fell, it was bad enough what she had to tell him, but Angel was actually happy—a rare occurrence over the past few years. Of all the times to show up…

Almost painfully, her eyes met his. Flushed pale, her eyes swollen and glossy, Willow found herself truly speechless. Her mouth shut tight, her throat feeling as though someone was chocking her, the witch was almost afraid to open her lips, as though saying those three horrific words would make Buffy's death that much more real.

At home it was hard, more than hard in fact. The scoobies had scarcely said a word since the day Buffy had died; the funeral was probably one of the hardest things any of them had ever endured. A few days ago Giles had managed the courage to suggest the Buffybot as the new resident slayer, but the thought had fallen on deaf ears… no one wanted to admit she was really dead, to move on.

But none of the pain back home compared to how Willow was feeling right now. Telling Angel had been the last thing anyone had wanted to do; more out of guilt than anything. What they were feeling right now was scarcely anything they could put to words, but Angel… he had known a piece of Buffy that none of them had ever touched, held it within his hands for longer than either would admit. Telling him that all that had been torn from them by the Slayer herself, Willow would have rather thrust him into the daylight than make him live through that.

"Willow?" Questioned Angel, his joyful high having faded upon his arrival. He found himself rooted to the spot as worry flooded his mind.

Willow stood up, her eyes never breaking his. Tears overcoming her once again, she knew that words were not needed. The look in Angel's eyes told her anything she needed to know.

Her silence spoke volumes.

It was then that Angel felt it. Like raging bolts of lightning crashing into his defenceless corpse, the realisation hit him hard. Upon his initial demeanour he hadn't even noticed it, his happiness clouding the sense that he usually clung to so dearly. The fiery, vivid connection that he and Buffy had shared for two years now had frozen in time. While in the other world it had been suppressed but now, back home the comprehension of its absence fell upon him. It felt as though someone had rooted a sword deep into his chest, the blade twisting deeper and deeper with every second that drew by. His mouth fell open as his mind was thrown into denial; this couldn't have happened, not now, not this soon.

"What's…?" Cordelia asked, unaware of the silent eruption beneath her friend's façade.

Angel blinked once, his disbelief almost insurmountable. After everything that she had lived through, after all that she had sacrificed, when he was gone not even in the same dimension, no this couldn't have happened. Dear god let this not have happened.

But the look in Willow's eyes dissipated any hope he may have had. Thrown into shock, overwhelmed at the shattering truth before him, Angel said the only thing that he could.

"It's Buffy."

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Fin


End file.
